It's that time. Out comes my crystal ball. I wish I had a time machine. Wouldn't it be great if, as a punter, we could travel forward to May of 2019 and see which football teams had gone up and down. Then we travel back to now and place our bets. Sadly only Dr. Who can do that. So I must make do with research, knowledge of what has happened in the past, the current state of play at certain clubs and that most favoured characteristic of mine - gut feeling.

Showout won for us at Brighton this afternoon at improved odds of 2/1.

The remaining three races selected for Friday take place this evening.

So I go straight on to the racing on Saturday.

As stated previously, I don't get involved in the Shergar Cup meeting staged at Ascot each year. It's not for punters. Why? Because the best horses often fail to win. Why? Because some of them are being ridden by jockeys that are not good enough, some of them from overseas.

This whole Britain against the Rest of the World nonsense is a competition . . .

Guaranteed price betting allows a punter to benefit if the price about a selection improves between the time when you placed your bet, and the finish of a race.

The first of two selections on Thursday, Marhaba Milliar, was priced up odds on when the betting market opened on Wednesday night. Thankfully for us punters the SP price was better, 11/10. So be sure to use a bookie offering GP terms. That way you'll get the best price available.

As an example to non members of the detail I send to VG Tips subscribers, here is what I . . .

I write this with 12 hours of the transfer window remaining for English football clubs. The European transfer market stays open for much longer. Like turkeys voting for Christmas, the Premier League clubs who voted for the domestic transfer window to close so early in August may be wishing they hadn't.

My season long predictions post and e-mail will be mailed out Friday, once we know all about any final transfer deals.

Predicting match results so early in a new season can resemble a lottery. You have little or no previous season form to go on and early . . .

The well backed on the day Land Force proved once again that there really is no point in waiting IF you have decided to back a particular horse. The first price about Land Force on Wednesday afternoon was 6/1 while 11/2 and 5/1 was still available overnight. The SP price when Land Force won the Richmond Stakes was a mere 5/2. The early bird punter grabs the best value once again.

There was also some decent each way profit on Wednesday. I did like the look of my 16/1 each way tip Zaman which was . . .

So here we are at the beginning of another domestic English football season. The World Cup is but a distant memory and now we get down to the brass tacks of a season long campaign.

The season begins this weekend in the Championship, League 1 and League 2 only. The Premier League kicks off one week later.

For those of you wondering where are my traditional pre-season predictions for promotion and relegation, I am waiting for the transfer window to close on August 9th. I suspect there will be quite a bit of panic buying of players in the . . .

Well I did suggest that Lil Rockerfeller could be 10 pounds better off at the handicap than the opposition in the opening race of the day on Wednesday. So it proved. Lil Rockerfeller won easily, by a whopping 15 lengths.

At odds of 4/1 and 7/2 the night before racing, he represented massive value in the betting market. Even at SP odds of 11/4, Lil Rockerfeller was a good price winner. As a punter it's nice to have one so far ahead of the field that you know long before the winning post that you are . . .